


In the Depth of Winter

by FlorenceofArabia



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Torture, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-29
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-20 03:30:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3634974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlorenceofArabia/pseuds/FlorenceofArabia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky Barnes struggles to remember who he is as they turn him into someone else</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

After the operations they throw him in a cell, somewhere deep underground where he can’t tell night from day. He’s told he should be grateful, if they were to put him above ground there’d be an open window. He wouldn’t die of hypothermia like any other man but it it would still be painful. He knows they’re right but sometimes he thinks he could bear to pain just to be able to get a glimpse of the sun again.

He tries to remember warmth and light. He remembers muggy summers where he cycled through all but his Sunday shirt every day. He remembers playing baseball in the street until it’s too dark to see. He remembers one day when he and Steve went down to Coney Island along with everyone else so they could get their feet in the water and arguing about whether they should go on any of the rides with Bucky insisting that this time would be different and Steve wasn’t going to throw up.  
‘No Bucky, this is not going to happen. If you really want to go on that thing you can go yourself and I’ll stay here on the nice firm, stable…not moving, ground and enjoy the breeze and wait for you.’  
‘But its no fun without you and so what if you do puke? It’ll be like a tradition.’  
‘In what sick twisted world of yours is that a tradition?’ Not that Steve would have had anything too throw up, his stomach ulcers had been bothering him and Bucky could tell he was lying when he said he’d had breakfast that morning but he pretended not to notice that or the occasional facial twitch that betrayed the pain his friend was in.  
‘Fine we won’t go’. He says and puts his hand on Steve’s delicate shoulder and in return gets that sad sideways little smile of his.  
He notices a nearby girl giving them a weird look. She must think he’s a real asshole and he wonders if she’s right. It’s not until later that he realizes why he’s always pushing Steve to do things that make him uncomfortable. In fact its part of the reason they get along. People have two reactions to Steve; mockery or pity and both boys hate them equally. Even though he and his friend know that people who feel sorry for Steve have their hearts in the right place. When they try and stop him from doing things they only mean well and usually they’re right. But they both still hate these people. Anyone who thinks Steve is just a sweet fragile soul in need of coddling finds that he is sharper, tougher and angrier than they’d anticipated; a boney hissing alley cat instead of a fluffy little kitty. Bucky doesn’t treat him like he’s fragile, he gives him shit and forces him to go outside and pushes him to talk to girls and yeah sometimes he hates it. But he’s also grateful because it means sometimes he gets to be a normal kid, all because Bucky treats him like one.  
Its not until Steve keeps trying to join the army that Bucky finally says something. He wasn’t frightened at first. The guy had laughed in his face and said that if there was a class 25Z he’d give it to him but since that doesn’t exist he’s going to mark him 4F. When he tells him parents his dad laughs too  
‘That kid can’t climb a flight of stairs without wheezing, why the hell does he think he can survive boot camp let alone go to France?’ His dad never talks about his time serving. The most he’d gotten out of him was a drunken rant about how he shouldn’t believe anything people tell him about duty and loyalty and country. ‘Our people came here because we couldn’t live with the English. Why the hell should we help them fight the Krauts? What have the Germans ever done to us? I know you hear a lot in the papers about atrocities, well let me tell you; I remember when they were saying the same things and they were bullshit then and I’m sure they’re bullshit now. Atrocities on both sides. That’s the thing about war, son. You go off wanting to be a hero and it makes you into the opposite’ He didn’t tell his dad how he really felt and didn’t say anything in response to his crack about Steve. His mother answers for him by giving his father a dirty look that could peel the wallpaper.  
‘They’re not taking him are they?’ His dad may not have the highest opinion of his best friend but his mother loves Steve as if he were her own and Sarah Rogers had felt the same way about him.  
‘Don’t worry ma, he’s nowhere near the height requirement, he’s got flat feet, and no doctor is going to let him into the army with those lungs of his.’ No matter what happens to him one of her boys will stay safe at home. But it hadn’t worked out like that. 

Once he’s recovered the conditioning starts. They strip him, hang him up by his writs and keep him awake for what feels like days. Zola tells the soldiers to be careful with him and he hates the man more for his hypocrisy.  
‘Why don’t you kill me? I’m of no use to you’  
‘My experiments worked. Or else you would not be alive now and since my research was destroyed you are the only key to creating more soldiers like you.’  
‘I’ll never help you’ But he’s scared that this is bravado, they both know its only a matter of time before he breaks down. He is unraveling and terrified of what his cowardice might cost.  
‘I do not want information from you. You only have to answer one simple question. Who are you?’ Every day he is asked this and everyday he answers with his name rank and serial number. This time is no different. Zola shakes his head looking disappointed  
‘What you must realize is that you are nobody. Once you come to understand that life will be much easier for us all, I promise’  
‘My name is James Buchanan Barnes, son of Mary and Gabriel. I grew up in Brooklyn and I served in the 107th regiment. And another thing…’ he knows that what he is about to say is childish and unlikely but he needs something to fight back with ‘my best friend in the whole fucking world is Steve Rogers who will find you, break your spine in ten places, and send you straight to hell where you belong’ Zola smiles at him  
‘That is very sweet but I hate to inform you that your absurdly dressed friend is dead. Where he is he cannot help himself let alone you. So I would put that thought out of your head, no one knows you are alive and no one would care that much. Do not expect to be rescued.’  
‘You’re lying.’ He says. He tries to sound angry, tries to sound contemptuous. Tries to sound like a goddamn hero. But he doesn’t feel like one, he just feel like he’s been punched in the gut, he’s stunned but he keeps talking  
‘I know you’re lying about Steve and it won’t work.’ Zola just smiles. 

The next day he gives Bucky a few newspapers. He tries to tell himself that they must be forgeries; that this is just another trick, but he knows he is trying to convince himself. After that day he knows something has changed. He still answers with his name and is beaten for it. He heals quickly but they come back and break his ribs again. Like Prometheus only he didn’t realize that this was part of the deal. He’d signed up to die for what he believed in whether it was quick and dignified or slow and obscene but he hadn’t signed on for this. 

‘Do you ever get the sense the Greek gods are assholes? I get that they had a rule about not giving humans fire but…well why? I mean were they worried we were going to use it to attack them or did they think it was for our own good because I don’t see how either of those makes any sense. But even if they had a good reason, chaining up this poor guy to have his liver eaten out every day? Does anyone deserve that?’  
This is one of those conversations that only comes up at 3:00 in the morning and Bucky isn’t completely sober, Steve isn’t either even though he really, really shouldn’t be drinking  
‘Ugh I don’t like to think about it’ Steve shivers like he can feel his flesh tear. They’re at Bucky’s new place; allegedly trying to figure out how to make it look less depressing without spending any money. They abandoned that a long time ago and sat talking with a bottle of whiskey. It’s Friday night, or Saturday morning rather. Steve is at art school during the week while Bucky works on the docks with his father.  
‘People are fucking sick the ways they think of killing each other.’ He’s only had a couple shots of whiskey but he’s slurring, his head keeps drifting to the side and he’s slumping badly; not able to hold himself as straight as he normally tries too. This reminds Bucky of how crooked his back really is when he’s not doing his best to hide it.  
‘Like just killing someone else ok I can see you might have your reasons but no people…you know what really killed Christ in the end?’  
‘Romans, which makes it weird that that’s where the Pope is now…or maybe its like revenge…’ he trails off remembering that Steve had asked what and not who. He’d always just assumed that being whipped and having nails in your hands and thorns in your scalp would do it, that the human body simply couldn’t take that much abuse  
‘Suffocation. If you have your arms out to the side…’ Steve spreads his arms to demonstrate, like an awkward bald chick ‘its harder to breath and eventually your lungs can’t keep inflating…That’s the thing that really bothers me. Someone spent their time thinking that up.’ Steve finishes his thought and puts his arms down there’s a pause and then Bucky says something he’s thought but never said aloud before  
‘I’m not sure our God isn’t an asshole too. You got to be a pretty cool customer to put your kid through that even if it’s for everyone else. If someone told me my son needed to die a horrible death to save the world I’d say 'fuck the world that’s my kid'…but then its also me, because… trinity… and it’s a shamrock…we’re drinking whiskey and talking about the holy trinity I feel like this is a really Irish conversation. We maybe just need some potatoes and a leprechaun…you know what sounds good right now…fries! And also a burger…is anywhere open at this hour?’ He can feel that he’s dug this conversation into a pit and now is trying to scramble out of it. After he moved out of the house he’d realized that he only showed up for mass on Sunday mornings (usually a touch hung over) because he knew if he didn’t he’d have to answer to his mother and Sarah Rogers, and probably his old man. It wasn’t liberating the way he knew it was for the boys who openly defied their parents and didn’t go. But it wasn’t painful either, it’d just happened one day without him realizing it, the end of a gradual process. But he knew that it was different for his friend. Every new misfortune that befell Sarah she saw it as a test of faith; never questioning the fairness of that kind of test. Steve was the same, Bucky could tell by the way he tried to pray even when it was a struggle to breathe and the way he looked at the crucifix on the wall during his bad nights. Bucky had looked at that same tortured figure and only thought ‘This isn’t fair’  
‘You’re telling me’ Jesus had replied, if only in his thoughts. That was the closest he’d ever gotten to a reply and that was mainly the product of his own sarcasm. He wonders if Steve’s conversations are as one sided. Maybe God isn’t so quiet with him, or maybe he just has the faith necessary to endure the endless eternal silence.  
When Steve responds it’s pensive. He clearly hasn’t been distracted by Bucky’s mention of food but he’s not going to get mad either.  
‘I’d be kinda disappointed if God was a man like you and me with motives we can understand. I’m pretty sure he’s not actually a he at all, come to think of it.’


	2. Chapter 2

When Bucky wakes up he is glad no one is with him. As soon as he remembers where he is and the memory of a long ago night in a Brooklyn tenement with his best friend fades away he begins to cry. He cries so hard he can’t breathe and the hot tears turn to ice on his cheeks but he can’t stop himself. He can’t remember the last time he cried like this but he does know why. Its because he knows now that Steve is really gone. That frail boy who had to fight to stay alive ever since he had been born too early and too small one Fourth of July before Bucky could remember; who never gave up and never ran from a fight had at last met with something he couldn’t beat through sheer force of will. Something that he wasn’t around to help with. When Bucky can breathe again he half falls out of bed and starts pounding the floor. It doesn’t matter what he does with his arm but there’s something satisfying about the way that the hated metal appendage, that doesn’t feel like a part of him, slams into the floor, breaking the concrete. Then it gets tiring and there he is, exhausted and kneeling by the bed with bloody knuckles.  
‘I know we haven’t talked in a while, but you’d better listen know. You take care of my parents you here? I know Steve is with you now, so you have to take damn good care of him. He’d better be with his family and not in the fucking waiting room, understand? I used to take care of him but I can’t even save myself anymore so you’d better pick up the slack. Just do this…just do this because I don’t care about myself anymore. Whatever happens to me happens but you look after my ma and pa and my best friend. Look after the people who deserve a break for once and do what you want with me.’ 

After this when they come to ask him who he is he answers “Nobody”. At first it’s a relief. They stop beating him and try and talk in what little English they have and Bucky hates himself for being so grateful. At first he only does it to stop the pain, then he makes sure to repeat his name, rank, and serial number after they’ve left just to be certain. But then they hook him up to the machine. After the first time he can’t remember his rank and other things have gone too. Then comes the second round and he’s no longer certain what army he’s with, or his serial number. Then he can’t remember his own name. They start teaching him Russian and he’s thankful for the distraction. They tell him that he is a Russian, a good solider tortured by the Americans…but aren’t we allies with the Americans? No that’s just what everyone thought… and loyal to HYDRA, whom or what this is he can’t remember. 

But that doesn’t explain why now he can speak English and it doesn’t explain why he remembers things like him and Steve yelling themselves hoarse at a Dodgers game or Karen Smith in her green dress with the white and yellow flowers giving him a hand job in the back of the theater during It Happened One Night while he wondered if she was thinking of him or Clarke Gable. Or when Richie DiMartino’s father had come over and started yelling at his dad because Bucky had kicked his son’s ass when he’d decided it would be fun to force Steve into a trash can and sit on the lid. He didn’t remember the actual fight with Richie or Richie for that matter, but he remembered his father sticking up for him telling the other man that if his son had gone after a little shrimp like the Rogers kid and was beaten up by Bucky who was half his size and then he should be ashamed and not be yelling for the whole block to know. Afterward he’d told Bucky that he needed to think twice about sticking around with Steve. ‘He’s trouble, he attracts bullies and not all of them are going to be like that kid you just wiped the floor with. Also people see you always hanging out with a loser like that they’ll think you’re a loser too.’  
‘I have other friends. Steve’s different, more like a brother’ his father had just snorted but his mother understood. Soon after Steve was born she’d had a son of her own. His baby brother only lived for about an hour. When Sarah needed someone to watch her son while she was at work Mary Barnes had been happy to take care of an infant along with her own toddler. Steve had taken the place so recently left by her dead child. His father on the other hand believed that some kind of demented bargain had been struck and taken his son, putting the sickly little blonde boy in his place.  
He remembers when he joined the army, the look on his mother’s face as she tried not to cry and told him he looked handsome and his father had given him a look he couldn’t quite place and told him to do his best to come back in one piece.  
He remembers that night in the TB ward when Sarah had departed this life for the next and the funeral and afterward when he told Steve he could come and live with him. He knew he didn’t really have the money to support him…hell he only had enough to cover rent, food, and the occasional night out or new tie but he could ditch the last two and Steve never ate much anyway. Of course he’d said no but after that he spent so much time at Bucky’s it was like they were sharing a place. 

These memories often come to him at night, which is why he both hates and longs for sleep at the end of the day.  


But after the next series of wipes these fade away as well. He stops being able to remember his parents and if he tries to think of Steve all he sees is a skinny blonde boy with vague features. They ask him questions and when he can no longer remember any details of his previous life they start to train him to fight. He’s good at it, strong despite the indeterminate time he’s been kept locked it the dark. Human life does not matter, ideology does not matter, your own pain does not matter they tell him. Find your target and eliminate it, that is your job, that is your purpose, that is what you were built for, what you live for. Sometimes during training he is told to kill the other soldiers. At first he refuses but he pays for it. More beatings, more treatments, new forms of torture, more memory wipes. The next time he has to fight he snaps the other man’s neck. The next time he kills he feels no remorse. He no longer remembers a life before this compound. But sometimes at night he sees bits of his past. It is only time he feels anything that isn’t anger or pain or cold. But there are only bits and pieces and he can’t turn them into anything meaningful for his conscious mind to focus on. Sometimes it’s an image and sometimes its just a phrase but the more he sees and hears in his sleep the lonelier and emptier he feels when he wakes. 

When they think he’s ready they give him his first assignment and now he has something real and concrete to think about. He can plan and react and fight. He knows nothing about the target and he picks the man off from a distance. When he finishes they tell him that they are going to let him sleep for a while, maybe for a few years but first they’ll make him forget. The years go by and this becomes his life. Each time he wakes he has a vague sense that there is something odd about his surroundings. Thirty years after his “rebirth” he is given a more permanent handler; an American politician named Alexander Pierce who he finds himself liking even though liking anyone is a foreign feeling. He thinks it might be that associates him with a figure from his dreams, a blonde with a square jaw and bright blue eyes. Pierce explains to him that what he does is nasty but he’s playing a crucial part in shaping a new world, a better world. In a matter of years there will be an end to petty dictators, to crime, and to wars like the one that took his old life and his arm away from him.  
‘Sir who was I before. Did I know you? You look familiar.’ Pierce considers this, than slaps him across the face.  
‘That’s a stupid question. You were remade before I was born. Don’t ask about your past life its better for everyone that way’  
‘Yes sir’ Pierce smiles at this and he already feels a little better after the slap  
‘See, just do what you’re told and don’t ask questions and we’re going to be fine. I promise when we reveal ourselves to the world you will be rewarded for everything you’ve done.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, Captain America's design was at one point based on Robert Redford. Which has lead to my personal headcannon that somewhere in the back of poor Bucky's scrambled brain he thinks that Alexander Pierce is Steve


	3. Chapter 3

The only time he has a problem with a mission is in the early nineteen nineties. The targets are a married couple and their deaths must look like accidents. Another man insists on coming with him despite his lack of experience and Pierce’s objections.  
‘Stane this is all supposed to be perfectly straightforward. I don’t want things getting screwed up because you feel like gloating’  
‘I’m the one who has to work with this asshole, at least give me the satisfaction of watching him sob like a girl when he sees what’s coming’  
‘This man probably poses a greater threat to our organization than anyone not named Margaret Carter or currently frozen somewhere in the North Atlantic. Don’t mess this up because you're jealous that this guys smarter than you’

They wait by the side of the long empty stretch of road until the target's car comes along. He steps out in front of it causing the driver to swerve and crash. The man driving must have been expecting this because when he gets a good look at him he starts unbuckling his wife’s seatbelt and trying to get her out from under the airbag  
‘Maria run!’  
‘Howard wha…’ she’s in shock and doesn’t know what’s happening, looking back and fourth between him and her husband. He closes the distance between himself and the car and puts his arm through the windshield. The man is trying to get his wife to go and in doing so forfeits any chance he has to escape, not that he could.  
‘Leave her please! It’s me you want, she doesn’t know anything! Please…’ he begs. But both their names were on the list. ‘Maria! Oh god oh god…no…’  
The woman’s death is almost instantaneous; he just smashes her head against the dashboard, caving in her skull while her husband screams. He drags the man out of his car and brings him out in front of the hood where Stane is waiting.  
‘I did try to warn you Howard. I’m sorry it had to come to this’  
‘You’re sorry?’ his target spits in return looking back at his wife’s corpse ‘Why do you even bother saying that? You work for an organization so evil and downright batshit crazy that Hitler himself disowned you. Why did Maria have to die? I told you she didn’t know anything’  
‘Its just neater this way. Besides leaves me with a clearer shot at your company. Again I’m not happy about it. Poor Maria stands by you while you stick your dick in every woman in the western hemisphere… a few men too and because she was dumb enough or nice enough not to divorce you this is how it ended for her’  
He felt the man, Howard tremble against him but he could tell it wasn’t fear. He was resigned to his own death, but overwhelmed with grief and anger and trying his best not to cry, to face his last moments with dignity. When he managed to speak he was defiant  
‘So who’s next? I’m assuming you’re going to kill Peggy after me’  
‘No actually Ms. Carter is surprisingly ignorant of the extent to which we’ve infiltrated her organization. I must say you made a good call by not confiding in her. She’s still on our watch list of course but we don’t see the need to eliminate her…at least not for now’  
‘You won’t win this. You didn’t win the war and you won’t win whatever this is. All it takes are a few good people and there will always be those who are willing to stand up to you. I won’t be able to stop you but I know people who can. You say that for every head cut off two take its place? Well sooner or later someone’s going to burn you to the ground so nothing can grow back’  
Stane just smirked at this  
‘Let me guess, you think that star spangled lab experiment you wanted so badly to jerk off during the war is going to be the one to do it? What makes you think anyone will be able to find the Valkyrie? You spent your whole life looking for the thing, and all they’d be able to salvage is a corpse’ For some reason when he hears this he feels a rush of hatred for Stane, somehow related to his obscene description for whoever the man, Howard, had had feelings for. He wonders if he shouldn’t bash his head in and leave his mark to go about his business; but he has his orders.  
‘The serum was supposed to stop soldiers from freezing to death, he could still be alive’ Howard says this like he doesn’t really believe it.  
‘Of course I forgot. But you know we actually wouldn’t mind if we found him because we’ve got big plans for Captain Rogers if he does turn up.’ Stane addresses him ‘Soldier, take off your mask show Mr. Stark here your face. You two used to know each other he’ll be happy to see you again’ He does as he’s told and watches the man in front of him scrutinize his face for a few minutes before terrified comprehension sets in  
‘Barnes? No it can’t be…you…’ He wants this mission to be over. He felt wrong killing the woman, now learning about this man is making him want to know what is going on, to ask questions.  
‘Our organization pulled him out of the ice after the war. Wiped his mind, he’s a blank slate now. Tell me solider who are you?’  
‘I am nobody’ he answers  
‘No…no…you can’t do that…you…your name is James Barnes, everyone called you Bucky. You were a soldier in the US Army during the Second World War, you were one of the Howling Commandos, you were the only one they lost. We worked together, I gave your unit weaponry I'd made. We all thought you died fighting HYDRA. You’re not on these people’s side!’  
‘Yes he is. He does whatever we tell him to. Soldier, does the name Captain America mean anything to you?’  
‘No sir’ something stirs in the back of his thoughts; Pain but he keeps going…sun coming up…relief he’s safe he’s out of it people crowding around them ‘Lets hear it for Captain America!’…everyone’s cheering…everything hurts but he’s so happy for the person they’re applauding…finally they can all see him for what he really is…now he isn’t his anymore, he belongs to everyone  
‘And what about if I called him Steve Rogers? Does that ring any bells?’  
‘No sir’ Other memories, things he doesn’t want. He’s on a roof during the summer…its too hot to sleep inside…the boy next to him is drawing the skyline ‘How do you do that?’ ‘Its not that hard and its not a very good drawing anyway’ ‘Cut the crap, you know you’re good at this’ ‘You’d be better, you can see better to begin with’ he takes the notebook and after a few minutes he shows the other boy the bizarre collection of geometric shapes…’See I told you…actually never mind I’m a cubist. I’ll move to Paris and people will call me a genius’ ‘Its more complicated than that. But here let me show you something called linear perspective, it’s a nifty trick…well art historians don’t call it that but I think it is’  
He jerks his head violently to the side as if trying to dissipate the images  
‘No I don’t know him’  
‘That’s not true’ interjected Howard, pleading with him. He wanted to agree but he couldn’t he knew the name Steve Rogers meant something but he had no way of figuring out what  
‘You knew Steve Rogers, he was your best friend. You grew up together in Brooklyn. When he thought you were dead he went to the pub where he recruited you to join the squad. He took a bottle of whiskey and spent the whole night out there even though there was an air raid going on trying to get drunk enough to numb the pain but he couldn’t…’ More pieces of memories and with them an overwhelming sense of loss and pain, he knew that Howard’s words were supposed to mean something to him but he didn’t understand why, or how to process them. What’s more he doesn’t want to. He hoped that Stane would stop talking so that he could kill him but no such mercy was afforded.  
‘See Howard, if we do find Rogers we’ll just erase his mind and turn him into a weapon like we did with this one. So for us it’s a win-win situation.’ Howard continued to stare into his eyes so that he had to look away but that must have convinced him to stop trying to reach him  
‘You have to remember Barnes, you have to stop this’  
‘I don’t know how and I don’t want to’  
‘Oh and Howard, you really should have gone to more trouble to keep your screw up son out of Stark Industries. Again I did try and warn you about this but I’m going to have to get rid of him if I want the company to myself. Goodbye Howard.’ Stane starts walking away and Howard turns to him  
He’s seen death up close before, and its never pleasant, as numb as he is its still hard not to be unsettled by watching the light leaving someone’s eyes. But he’d never seen anything like the look of this man now, the way that all hope leaves him the terror and desperation took hold and the tears that he’s held back begin to flow.  
‘No, no…Please, please don’t hurt Tony please…he hasn’t done anything, there’s no way he can be a threat to you… he’s a screw up you said yourself…’  
‘You don’t really believe that do you Howard? I know you’ve left him messages, I’ve destroyed a few but there are some I’m sure are beyond me. But it won’t matter, I’ll give him a sporting chance to self destruct but whether he OD’s or has another “car accident” like you or gets kidnapped; your son’s days are numbered. Soldier whenever you’re ready’  
He wishes that the man had been allowed to die with his wife not have it be strung out like this with him begging and crying. It’s pathetic and part of him is disgusted by it, but for the first time in years he feels pity. He takes Howard’s head in his hands, gently almost the way a lover would while the man sobs  
‘Not Tony…no…my son please god not my son…please…please’  
‘I’m sorry’ he says as softly as he can, then snaps Howard’s neck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought it would make a lot of sense if Stane was with HYDRA so here he is being awful to poor Howard  
> I honestly don't know why Peggy is still alive, you'd think she'd be target number one, but I'm not complaining. However I do think the possibility that they wanted to turn Steve into a weapon like Bucky would explain why HYDRA allowed their greatest enemy to be thawed out, just a thought


	4. Chapter 4

By the time he gets back he wants badly to have his memory wiped. He doesn’t care how much it hurts. Pain is preferable to this confusion. Whatever life he had it’s behind him. He can’t go back. He tries to tell Pierce about the mission tries to explain in detail, but aside from confirming that both marks were dead he had trouble explaining the conversation. When pressed he just kept asking to have his memory wiped. He didn’t want to think about the conversation, he didn’t want that man’s death, or his pleas for his sons life, he didn’t want his tears and he didn’t want his assurances of who he really was. Howard Stark had died friendless, hopeless and for all it mattered he had died alone.  
‘Do the wipe, just freeze me’ he begs until Pierce relents and he takes the bit without complaint. The next time he wakes up five years later he has no memory of the previous job. He completes another mission successfully, then he's frozen again until they thaw him out for what he’s told is his final assignment. They stress how important these two marks are and he feels that his memory is being wiped more often than usual. 

He shoots the first one just fine but is chased by another man who is surprisingly fast. He’s about to jump off the roof when he hears and object coming towards him. He catches it and turns to face his opponent. Should he fight this man? Something tells him no. He should think this because the last thing he wants is attention or because he is unnaturally strong. But that isn’t it. He throws the shield back at him and jumps, escaping into the night. Later he is shown a photo of the man, he’s the second target  
‘Is he like me?’  
‘Why do you care?’ asks Pierce, his voice harsh in a way that implies that he’s as likely to get a beating as an answer  
‘I’ll have to fight him. If he’s as strong as I am I should modify my approach.’  
‘That’s all?’  
‘Why does he fight with a shield?’ he should have found a more tactical way of phrasing that but it bothers him. It’s not a weapon.  
‘Well its made out of a rare metal so it protects him from a lot. I suppose when you don’t have a magic hammer or flying suit you have to make due…he does use guns but... well he fights with the shield because he believes its his role to protect people. He’s like us only more public and less effective.’  
‘Magic hammer?’ he asks  
‘You missed that New York insanity. An extraterrestrial army tried to invade and we were in no way prepared to deal with the threat. The response from the government was unhelpful and though a group of unique individuals, people like yourself, were able to repel it that was only after a massive amount of damage had been done and hundreds of people were dead. The program we are working on at the moment would be able to effectively defend against any future incursions of that sort’  
‘That sounds reasonable’ He offers ‘Why don’t these men want that?’  
‘Unfortunately your current target is…outdated. He doesn’t understand the world we live in today or the threats we face. He’s the kind of person who will always insist he has the moral high ground. And he may be right but that doesn’t make him any less misguided. He’s the kind who doesn’t yield and doesn’t give up. There’s no way he can be persuaded, so for the good of those who might be won over to his way of thinking, he has to be killed. You see that he has to be killed don’t you?’  
‘Yes sir’  
‘Good man. Next time you face him I don’t want you alone, I don’t think he’ll be’  
Everything Pierce says makes sense to him but he can’t stop thinking about this mark. He gets his memory wiped on a daily basis, which would strike him as odd if it didn’t make him feel better about the fact that he keeps getting distracted by fragments of another life.  
The next time they fight his mask comes off and he watches as his target stares at him in horror and disbelief. Only one other person stared at him like that, for the first time in years he thinks of Howard Stark before he died. He hopes that what the man is about to say will mean something will cause some of this to make sense but when he speaks it means nothing  
‘Bucky?’  
‘Who the hell is Bucky?’ The other man stands there as if paralyzed. He doesn’t argue, he doesn’t try to tell him who he thinks he is. He just stares and when they take him away its like he can’t fight anymore. But if his appearance broke his target, the other man has caused something to break within him. Because before now he’s seen a couple photographs and seen him from a distance but now that he’s been close, now that they were inches away from one another and he’d heard his voice he understands the truth  
He had known him  
With this knowledge comes confirmation, he really did have a life before whatever it was he was now and that man existed somehow. He still wants to run, to hide, to keep things simple to forget again but he knows he’s beyond that now. Before he at least understood his place as a weapon, it wasn’t pleasant to be interchangeable with a gun no need to think no room for guilt, do what you’re told. Now he’s not even that, he’s a tool that doesn’t work. He’d like to be able to talk to regroup but he just repeats the one thing he knows for certain 

‘I knew him’ 

Bad day at work but it’s the end of the week…Steve’s waiting for him outside…’How long have you been here?’ he takes off his scarf and wraps it over the thin faded one his friend is already wearing and gets the under the eyelashes glare that actually makes Steve look less intimidating ‘Are you frozen yet? If you are its your own fault you should have gone back to my place and waited.’ ‘This is were you said to meet when your shift ended, I didn’t want you to come out and not find me here, then you’d be worried or you’d wait or…Bucky stop waving your cigarette lighter in my face’ He has to admit it looks pretty stupid but fire is fire and they can both feel the warmth  
‘I’m getting really sick of winter’ they start walking ‘Me too’ Sick of winter, sick of the freezing dockyard, sick of his father and his crooked union buddies, sick of being around the assholes they grew up with…he’s always up for a western if its showing at the pictures, not because he likes cowboys but because he likes the deserts…big open spaces…he’s never been anywhere where he wasn’t hemmed in by buildings  
‘I knew him’  
‘I know how we can fix it’  
‘Does it involve booze, dancing, or a girl? Because I’m sorry but I can’t deal with any of those tonight, I’m sorry I’m no fun Bucky…’  
‘I never said you were no fun, and I can do all of those things myself’  
‘Including the girl?’  
‘Well I can think of a girl’  
‘Gross.’ Steve shoves him and laughs ‘You are going to go crazy and jump out of a window…’  
‘That’s Refer Madness you’re thinking of’ Now they’re both laughing like idiots. Its not that what they’ve said was that funny or that the movie had been that hilarious (though it had been pretty funny) it was just something about being a couple of young men with the weekend ahead of them  
‘Oh my god you’re right anyway how are you going to fix the fact that its freezing out?’ 

‘I knew him’

‘We’re going to California’ he says…if we got some money saved up we could do it… warm there year round it’d have to be better for Steve his chest is always worse in winter  
‘Oh we’re going to do this, you’ve decided?’  
‘Yes I have, this is not a democracy Steve’  
‘All right fearless leader, what do we do for work? Let me guess; you’re gonna be a movie star?’  
‘A guy can dream can’t he?’  
‘How’s about we visit sometime and see if we like it?’ He wonders if he really could get his friend to leave Brooklyn  
‘Ok but you’ve got to promise you’ll think about it because I’m not going without you’  
‘What makes you think I’d let you?’

Back in the present Pierce slaps him but he barely notices it. But when he’s offered the bit he takes it like he always does and when they’re done he knows one thing. Until he kills Steve Rogers he will not know peace. He hates this, he hates himself, but he can’t see this ending any other way. So when Rogers comes to stop them he’s there waiting.  
‘Please' he begs 'don’t make me do this’  
But he will, he’ll have to, he’ll leave him no choice. Because if he attacks him he’ll have to defend himself and that will make it easy kill or die. But it isn’t that simple, Rogers overpowers him but doesn’t kill him. He knows he’s failed but he has to end this but Rogers won’t fight.  
‘You’re my mission!’ he’s screaming and he didn’t realize it. He can’t just kill him he needs to fight but he won’t. Kill or die. This man would rather die. He’d rather die than hurt me. Why? He must want to live he’s only human. Oh god…he loves me, he loves me more than his own life…I made him choose and he chose me. Why after all this time?  
A scrawny boy bleeding and battered in the gutter ‘Do you enjoy getting beaten up or something?’  
Paler than his bed sheets his skin covered in angry red sores ‘Bucky I’m sorry’  
‘You’re sorry? Why?’  
‘Because you have to deal with all of this, because you’re hear with me when you  
should be outside. I don’t get to be normal but you should…I’ he’s crying, Steve never cries for himself even when everything hurts but he now he’s crying for him. He doesn’t give a shit about whatever Steve thinks his normal, keeping him alive is the only thing that matters  
But they’re both going to die, metal is crashing down around them and all it will take is a couple more blows before its over 

‘I’m with you, til the end of the line’ 

‘Has his fever broken?’  
‘No not yet. Mary, you should go home. There’s nothing more you can do and its so late and James should be in bed’  
Women talking on the other side of the door…won’t let him sit by the sickbed…’I don’t want you getting sick too, darlin and he won’t know you’re even there’ it's late…he doesn’t know if he’s ever been up this late… his body limp in the chair feels his head sliding and snaps it up…forces himself to sit up straight…can’t control his body, can’t stay awake but he has to…’I’m not leaving Sarah, I’ll tell Gabe to take the boy home but…if…’ she can’t finish that sentence ‘you shouldn’t be alone. I’m here for you, until the end of the line’ His mother comes out and whispers something to his father then comes over and hugs him so tightly it almost hurts. When she goes back into the bedroom his father turns to him  
‘Go get Father Flynn, James’ He’s wide-awake now, no one calls him James  
‘No…No!’  
‘Be quiet. If you care about your friend go get the priest. You’re almost a man now and this is what being a man means. You have to make the tough decisions’  
‘He’s not going to die! You don’t know anything.’ he wipes away the tears that are starting to stream down his face. His father puts his arm around him  
‘Yes he is and neither of those women are going to call the priest until its too late. If you care about your friend look to his soul.’  
He pulls away and glares at his father, he never imagined he could hate him this much.  
‘Go James, quickly. Don’t make me tell you again’ 

He remembers that night years later, after Sarah’s been put in the earth. He’d cried for her too. Someone up there hates Steve. He’s just lost his only family and now he’s going to have to give up on the dreams that he'd had of being an artist. He just wants to help. He doesn’t know how to tell him that their lives aren’t separate like regular friends, he can’t detach himself anymore than he can just casually put aside a limb. 

‘I’m with you, til the end of the line’ 

Steve falls away beneath him, his body limp. He realizes now why he was so certain he would fight to the death, because Steve never gave up, Steve never stopped fighting until he physically couldn’t. But he wouldn’t fight me. He dives into the water and grabs his friend, struggling to bring the body up to the surface. When he pulls him up on the shore he waits, maybe he’s dead after all, maybe he finally made a martyr of himself. But then his chest hitches and he begins to breath again. So he walks away. 

Now he has to figure out what to do next. He is free but his memories flit in and out and the world around him is more deeply strange because he cannot think what everything is supposed to look like. All he has are the wet clothes on his back. He breaks into someone’s house and changes and takes a real shower instead of being stripped and hosed down like a dog. It feels wrong somehow but makes him want to try other things; banal things like cooking his own food. He looks at himself in the steamy mirror then rubs away the last of the eye paint. Then he tries to shave clumsily, cutting himself. So he gives up, but he still thinks about it, he must have been able to shave himself once, he's sure of it. When they’d first operated on him they’d shaved his head but no one had bothered about it once it had grown out. He hasn’t had a haircut since the 1950’s. He stares at himself in the mirror. He’d been handsome once and the features are the same, but he looks gaunt and pinched. Though its really the eyes that give him away. There’s no light in his eyes. They stare out of the mirror at him, flat and dead. But when he puts on the clothes he looks almost normal. 

He walks around the city for a long time, hands in his pockets, seeing if anyone notices him. No one does. He wonders if Steve is all right. Then he sees the sign for the exhibit. When he goes in he finds himself face to face with another version of himself and reads about a life he knows was once his.


End file.
